Location, Location, Location: GEO-locate Your Video Users and Unleash Deep Insights

This is a guest blog post from Adam Singolda, Founder and CEO of Taboola.

In real estate, the old saying “location, location, location,” speaks to the simple concept that the best-located properties are the most valuable. The concept of location and video users never really had much potential until recently.

For example, how valuable would it be for an online publisher to see viewing trends based on geo-location? It is possible that online video views of the NBA’s Sacramento Kings are very high from users in Israel this time a year – all due to the fact that the first Israeli-born player Omri Casspi is on the team. Now, this is a rather famous example, especially if you visited in Israel, but what other “less famous” examples await out there? How often is this type of GEO trend being created and not capitalized on? Is it yearly, monthly, or perhaps daily? What if you could dive deeper and see the world’s user location data/trends from your entire video inventory? So much you can do, right? Only this can be a very difficult problem to solve, given the amount of users, places they can come from and pace in which those trends are being created and then go away.

You could offer better user experience because you know what people like based on where they are coming from both geographically and culturally. And, since the Internet is essentially location agnostic, content can flow to the furthest regions of the world with the click of a mouse. By analyzing this data, you can gain insights into where your audience resides, and provide content that meets their cultural needs.

In addition, not only could you increase monthly streams, and engagement, but you could also use this data to show local advertisers the potential they have in reaching their target audiences – in ways they probably have never considered. And, I do believe that advertisers will pay a premium for this location information-based targeting. We already see instances of it in other worlds, just recently MG Siegler blogged about Foursquare offering treats for their users, the potential of it in scale, and why companies like Google like it so much.

Tools for online publishers are evolving every day to where you can access this data. For example, today’s video recommendation engines (such as ours, Taboola’s) can have the ability to scout commonalities, and provide insights into what recommended videos are engaging users. However, more importantly is mapping those videos to their engaging locations in the world, as they are being created and stopped. Automatically. This combination of “where” and “what” is a secret sauce that will allow online publishers to better enhance user engagement and experience, and better monetize their video assets.

So, this GPS-enabled world that we now live in can and will transcend into the online video publishing arena. The bottom line is that everyone has to be somewhere on the planet. Only now you can see where they are, know what videos they are watching and try to determine if there is a GEO-based-trend being created you want to leverage on your site before it goes away.

Imagine the potential — your audience, could be millions of different users, will then discover what they came for or even more extreme — never knew existed on your site (“if you build it they will come”)

About the Author:
Adam Singolda is the Founder and CEO of Taboola, the provider of personalized video recommendation engine for publishers, marketers and users. Follow Taboola on Twitter @taboola.